Can Asperger people become emotional manipulators?

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Zyborg
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21 Jun 2009, 3:38 pm

MrLoony wrote:
Manipulation isn't necessarily evil or selfish. Diplomats manipulate people all the time, as do politicians (who, contrary to popular belief, are not necessarily selfish).

Edit: Or, better yet, suicide counsellors. Are they evil?


Exactly, good and evil are not absolute, but dependent on situation. If you could prevent death of 3 billion human beings by killing 30 million people, it is good thing to kill 30 million people.



millie
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21 Jun 2009, 3:43 pm

^The word "manipulation" has connotations of subterfuge and underhandedness....In short, it has negative connotations.

what you are describing is something different. It is called "influence." There is a subtle difference.
Both may involve strategy, suspension of truths and indirect tactics.

Manipulation has far less savoury connotations than the tactics used by a suicide counsellor, to thwart someone's wish to end their own life.

diplomats? cannot comment.



Michjo
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21 Jun 2009, 4:12 pm

Zyborg wrote:
MrLoony wrote:
Manipulation isn't necessarily evil or selfish. Diplomats manipulate people all the time, as do politicians (who, contrary to popular belief, are not necessarily selfish).

Edit: Or, better yet, suicide counsellors. Are they evil?


Exactly, good and evil are not absolute, but dependent on situation. If you could prevent death of 3 billion human beings by killing 30 million people, it is good thing to kill 30 million people.

Some people would disagree, some people would ask which group they were in :wink:

But seriously, it's very easy to manipulate someone. I used to do it all the time when i was younger. I'm very good at "pretending to cry" or "pretending to have a break down".... and don't even get me started on the fake manic-episodes or fake stimming.

Infact even with age i still manipualte people, if i know a conversation is going in a bad direction, i will display fake-anger and fake stimming. It's better to stop people in their tracks before i am develop real anger.



MrLoony
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21 Jun 2009, 4:13 pm

So, because people have bastardized the definition of manipulation to make it sound horrible, we should discard it as a tool for good? Manipulation is underhanded, but so is spying. Yet spying is a very important part of foreign relations in every industrialized nation.

The word manipulation receives a completely illogical and unreasonable gut reaction from people who do not understand what it means:

Quote:
to change by artful or unfair means so as to serve one's purpose


Which is exactly what, for example, suicide counsellors do, or diplomats.


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millie
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21 Jun 2009, 4:27 pm

Mr Loony, changes in language, vocabulary and their semantics isn't "bastardisation." It is the ESSENCE of language, which is never in a fixed state, but always in a state of flux.

There isn't a "fixed" meaning attached to any word. As soon as a dictionary is published it becomes obsolete....

:roll:



now...back to the thread topic....
In my view,many ASD people are naturally very caring and quite 'wide-eyed" and innocent. And yet, as others have posted, there is the issue of "personality." I have seen enough variation here on WP regarding personality and presentation, to shake off previously held generalisations about ASD people. We are a cross-section of the population, with all the variations that entails.



MrLoony
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21 Jun 2009, 4:44 pm

True, but that doesn't change the fact that the word manipulation has been given a bad reputation because of how it is used in media and influential people. This alone does not change the meaning of a word, as manipulation is still used for times when it is not necessarily selfish or evil. Influence does not really describe the tactics used as well as manipulation does.


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Michjo
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21 Jun 2009, 4:57 pm

If i was a doctor, and i faked an image of someones lungs to make it look as if they had cancer. I would be manipulating them to stop smoking. Obviously a week later, there would be another scan and i'd say, "Looks like your first one was just a bad image"...

This isn't having an influence, it's manipulation



Pinkaspie5
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09 Apr 2011, 12:09 am

Michjo... That is not only a very good example of manipulation... It is also very illegal



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09 Apr 2011, 2:39 am

I manipulate people all the time. You could say that when I talk to a person, I'm manipulating that person into liking me by choosing to conform to the conventions of NT conversation when it's not natural. That's usually how I feel. Although, you could also say it's like speaking to a person in their native language rather than your own.

I manipulate people in other ways too. It's not hard for me to try to think of what behavior to use to elicit a certain response from someone.



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09 Apr 2011, 1:20 pm

My parents say I'm manipulative quite a lot & that I'm very emotional & trying to get others to do things I can do myself because I'm lazy & extremely selfish. I think some of the problems are related to being Aspie & my physical disabilities. I'm very dependent & I don't like taking steps to be independent because I've screwed things up a lot. I also get overwhelmed & do thing much slower than others because of bad OCD. I think being manipulative is kind of a learned adaptation because I'm so dependent.


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09 Apr 2011, 1:29 pm

I don't know. I've been accused of it before and I don't know what the person was talking about *shrug*. I've even asked "exactly what am I trying to manipulate you into DOING" and they didn't have an answer for me. I find it offensive to be accused of something like that when it wasn't my intent, but whether other people with AS do it, I don't know.

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09 Apr 2011, 1:53 pm

I do not have the social skills to be able to manipulate people lol. Apart from which I prefer to be direct, open and honest. Manipulation makes me feel uncomfortable.



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30 May 2012, 8:52 pm

Of course there are always outliers, but I think that only those on the lower end would be capable of emotional manipulation. Your typical, run-of-the-mill, aspie simply would not not consider it as it runs against an aspie's natural, almost blind, tendency to be straight-forward and blunt. It could be done, sure, I just do not see how an aspie would comprehend the proposed "benefits" of doing such a thing. It would seem pointless and irrelevant.

Sure, it can boost one's ego, but where is the logic behind such activity? There is none. Many aspies were teased or bullied. I cannot think of any aspie who would willingly trick another human being into some sort of emotional entanglement they otherwise would not have been in without feeling guilty.

To go with that, aspergers shares a few common traits with histrionic personality disorder. A person with HPD most definitely would emotionally someone. And they would not be aware of it, either, as the action would seem normal to them. It could be posible that someone is confusing someone with HPD with one of aspergers.



Last edited by Crucial_BBQ on 30 May 2012, 8:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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30 May 2012, 8:54 pm

Maggiedoll wrote:
Depending on how you mean it, I don't think so. Everyone is different, and maybe there are some manipulative aspies, but I don't think that manipulation is likely from an aspie. However, Asperger's syndrome and Borderline Personality Disorder can look very, very similar at first glance, and borderlines definitely ARE manipulative.

However, if what you mean is "Can somebody with AS learn to mimic social skills and 'manipulate' people into believing that they are an NT" or "Can somebody with AS make somebody feel manipulated," then I'd have to answer yes. Also, someone with AS is quite likely to give incorrect impressions on things (act like they're interested in something they're not, act like they're not interested in something they are, etc) but this is more likely to be something very unintentional that is simply a result of not knowing how to express themselves in a normal manner. For example, an aspie who wants to be liked and wants to have friends may give the impression of romantic interest even if they have none. It's not that they're trying to give that impression, it's that showing interest in people is difficult, particularly that correct balance. It's something that's difficult for NTs, as well, but is much more pronounced in aspies. An aspie may have been told that they seemed too aloof and uninterested in people, make an effort to seem more interested, and therefore seem to be "leading someone on" in their effort to show interest in other people.


Actually from what I've read its not that people with BPD are not nessisarily manipulative, its more that's how they come of without meaning to be...its more the stigma that suggests people with the disorder are nasty manipulators that should be accused of 'attention seeking' when they need help but the reality is not quite like that. Yeah my Psychology professor finds that sort of stigma more harmful then good for people with that disorder.


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30 May 2012, 11:59 pm

MrLoony wrote:
True, but that doesn't change the fact that the word manipulation has been given a bad reputation because of how it is used in media and influential people. This alone does not change the meaning of a word, as manipulation is still used for times when it is not necessarily selfish or evil. Influence does not really describe the tactics used as well as manipulation does.


But it doesn't change the fact that the word 'manipulation', without specifying a specfic case, has high probabilities of being referred to a unfair demeanor. An 'emotional manipulator' is supposed to be a person who manipulates often, and does that in order to change people's decission, not to support them (otherwise it would be 'supportive'). Though manipulation can be possitive, a person who manipulates systematically is very likely to be unfair.

JetLag wrote:
I think that most Aspies have a great sense for fair play and are refreshingly too blunt and direct to manipulate anyone. They simply don't have room for it.


I couldn't agree more.



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31 May 2012, 12:40 am

Sure. Nothing surprises me anymore what aspies can do. I have seen aspie trolls, aspie bullies, aspie manipulators, aspies being as*holes, aspies being ignorant about aspie traits, and an aspie playing games in court with the judge to alienate her son from her ex by using manipulation and taking her ex's posts from here to use against him in court. So an aspie being a emotional manipulator wouldn't surprise me and I would think it's possible.


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